


birds of a feather

by tenderized



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Idol AU, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27015034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenderized/pseuds/tenderized
Summary: Suna is the last to join Inarizaki, a final addition as the youngest member of their agency’s newest boy group.He’s a mistake, Atsumu thinks. A pretty face, and not much else. And pretty is being generous, he thinks uncharitably, because the other is pretty in the way broken glass is pretty. Pretty like you’re not supposed to stare directly at the sun pretty, and no actually, that’s not the right word, so really, he’s not even that.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Suna Rintarou
Comments: 2
Kudos: 69





	birds of a feather

**Author's Note:**

> yes...it's user tenderized back with another celebrity enemies to friends to lovers atsusuna fic...no i don't want to talk about it

_Tonight you’re thinking of cities under crowns  
of snow and I stare at you like I’m looking through a window,  
counting birds.  
  
-Richard Siken_

________________________________ 

“You’re still up?” Suna walks into the practice room, the door swinging shut behind him with a heavy click, and he tosses his water bottle to the ground near the back, next to the speakers.

Atsumu spares him a look, watches as Suna unzips his jacket to throw next to his water bottle, and curses when he misses a step. He grabs his phone to pause the music.

“You know they don’t care if you mess up, right?” Suna says, although Atsumu hadn’t asked. They, being their fans, and yes, Atsumu knows, he’s not some amateur. “In fact, you should, because when you improve later, it looks better.” He makes a sarcastic gesture with his hand. “Growth.”

His words are irritating, even though he’s right. In this industry, beginner’s charm is part of the allure, what draws in the fans. Something about growing up together, maybe, watching as your chosen idol develops and improves, the intimacy of it.

It’s all fake.

“I don’t care what they think,” he grits out.

“Really?” Suna sounds surprised. “Then why’re you an idol? That’s kinda the whole point.”

Atsumu doesn’t answer.

“It’s not the attention, then?” Suna’s eyes are unnerving, their color too light, his lashes too dark. They narrow as they watch him. “You seem like you like that sort of thing.” _Attention whore_ , he mouths.

Atsumu scoffs. It is that, partially, but - 

“Oh.” Suna’s face clears, almost as if in understanding. “The music, then? You actually like the whole performance aspect, don’t you?”

He blinks. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“No,” Suna says, face scrunched up. “Well, not most people. Not enough to practice until the sun rises, like you, if it’s not mandatory,” he amends.

Atsumu rolls his eyes and rocks back on his heels. He expects for Suna to continue, curious despite himself, and tries not to make it too obvious he’s waiting, like he cares what the other has to say, but in the end, the younger doesn’t pursue the topic.

He imagines running through the song a couple more times, then thinks of Suna’s sharp gaze watching him through the mirror, and shivers. How…off-putting.

“Well if we’re done here, I’m leavin’,” is what comes out of Atsumu’s mouth, instead, and he slings his own thin windbreaker over his shoulder, turning around with a half-wave behind his back. “All your noise makes it impossible to practice.”

It’s not until later, when Atsumu’s lying under the covers and looking at the empty bed beside his, hair still damp and wetting the pillow, that he realizes he never asked Suna what the other was doing in the practice room at that time of the night.

________________________________ 

Suna is the last to join Inarizaki, a final addition as the youngest member of their agency’s newest boy group. 

A year younger than Atsumu, Osamu, and Gin, his role is to be the baby of the group, correcting the awkward 95-95-95 tie that Inarizaki had going, but even then, it’s a sub-par fix. Only three and a half months younger than him and Osamu, they’d all technically be in the same year in school anyway.

He’s a mistake, Atsumu thinks. A pretty face, and not much else. And pretty is being generous, he thinks uncharitably, because the other is pretty in the way broken glass is pretty. Pretty like you’re not supposed to stare directly at the sun pretty, and no actually, that’s not the right word, so really, he’s not even that.

He doesn’t even have the cutesy quality a youngest member ought to have, something to endear him to their ever-critical fans. Too closed-off and too blank-faced. Reverse-charm, maybe, but it’s hard to find anything particularly _charming_ about Suna Rintarou.

What’s the point in adding a new member to a group already half-a-year active?, that’s what Atsumu wants to know. To a group like _Inarizaki_ , which was already perfect and on the road to success, especially. They didn't need useless additions.

He’s a former child model, they learn. Well, so were he and Osamu, and they had a couple of CFs under their belts, too, prior to debut. Aran’s done voice-acting, was part of a _comedy group_. Kita’s played secondary lead in an entire drama series, before. It’s nothing impressive.

The first few weeks, Suna follows Kita around like a lost duckling, and it is unbelievably annoying. Doesn’t he know Kita has things to do? Other people to pay attention to? Being leader isn’t an easy job, y’know? It’s selfish, is what it is.

“’Least he doesn’t keep everyone up with his cryin’ at night,” Osamu says. “Unlike someone else I could mention.”

“You shut your fat mouth, ‘Samu,” Atsumu growls. “Whose side are you on anyway? I never kept anyone up.” So, he’d been homesick the first time he’d spent the night away from his parents. So what? Real men are in tune with their emotions.

“Didn’t say any names, stupid,” his brother replies, flipping through a Shounen Jump magazine. Every time he thumps his leg down on the bed, Atsumu can feel the vibrations through the thin frame, shaking the lower bunk as well.

He throws a stuffed animal at the mattress above him, watching as it bounces off and onto the ground.

“Bad boy image, though? That’s so contrived.”

“Ooh, contrived. Big word. Where’d ya learn it?”

“Shaddup. If we really needed that, I could do it.”

“Yeah, you’re plenty bad.”

Atsumu groans and tries to smother himself with a pillow. Every few seconds he can feel his mattress jump as Osamu’s leg smacks against his bed.

He looks at the empty bed next to his in this three-person bedroom, and his attention is caught by the suitcase shoved underneath, open, and still full to the brim.

“Does he even wanna be here?” he asks, quieter now. “All his stuff’s still packed. It’s been weeks.”

“Why don’tcha ask ‘im if you’re so bothered?” comes Osamu’s bored voice.

Atsumu chews on his bottom lip and doesn’t answer.

________________________________ 

Beside him, Osamu spits out his water and starts coughing.

“What’s wrong with you?” Atsumu asks, eyebrows furrowed, and moves to slap the other on the back.

His brother hacks, thumping at his chest. 

“Nothin’,” he says, and his face is red all the way to the tips of his ears. He sets his phone face-down on the table and reaches for the napkins to wipe up the spill.

The door opens, and Suna walks in, now changed into his stage costume, his exposed collarbones shimmering with coarse glitter, and he heads towards his backpack, where he bends over to slide his phone into the small pocket in the front. 

Osamu starts coughing again, and Atsumu glares, looking between the two of them.

“Are you alright, Osamu?” Kita calls out, and Osamu blushes harder. “Maybe you oughta go out and get some air.”

“Sorry,” Osamu apologizes. “Just saw somethin’ that surprised me.”

“What was it? Can I see?” Gin asks, curious, leaning into the space between Atsumu and Osamu, and Atsumu ducks out of the way before the other’s shoulder pads can dig his eye out.

“No!” Osamu says, too quickly, before correcting himself. “Sorry, I mean, it really wasn’t that funny.”

On the other side of the room, Aran snorts loudly.

Gin looks dejected. “Well, that’s fine then, I guess.” He sits back down, drumming his fingers against the wood of the table.

“It’s nothing you’d wanna see anyway, Gin,” Atsumu snaps. “Definitely somethin’ nasty and perverted, probably.”

Osamu throws him an odd look, as if confused. Like he doesn't know. Beside him, he can hear Suna sigh, long-suffering, and his insides twist.

Before Ginjima can reply, a stage crew member comes in, and they all stand up.

“Ten minutes ‘til show time,” she announces, and then it’s a flurry of movement as makeup artists wave brushes around their faces for last-minute touch ups, and Atsumu gets a face full of hairspray that makes him splutter.

Moments later, they’re below stage, and he’s crouched next to Suna on the platform that’s supposed to lift them up to the world above.

His heart’s beating fast, the way it does before every performance, never mind the fact that they’ve been singing the same five songs for the past half-year. He clutches the pendant of his necklace, and the way the edges dig into the skin of his palm is grounding.

Suna looks at him, and his eyes are glittering, bright as stars, the way they are every time they're about to perform, twin shards of glass. 

_We’re the same_ , Atsumu thinks to himself, thoughts suddenly fever clear. _Do you feel that, too, Suna?_ and he forgets that he's supposed to be upset. _Can you hear the way my heart races?_

The other's pink mouth parts a little, then, like he wants to say something, but there’s no time to question it because in between one breath and the next, the music starts, and then they’re flying, out on the stage and underneath the dazzling lights.

________________________________ 

Atsumu dreams of birds.

When he was younger, he’d had the running fantasy of finding an injured bird and bringing it home to nurse back to health. A real Disney character sort of fantasy. He’d wanted to cradle one between his hands and feel its tiny heartbeat, the flutter of its wings.

It never happened, though, not even when he’d thrown rocks at some of the sparrows that gathered by the curb, under the shade of the wisteria tree in front of his house. 

Never with the intent to harm, honest, but, still. Curious.

All he ever got out of it was dirtied hands and teasing from his brother as he watched from the side.

He’s driving, in his dream, an old ass blue-grey Mitsubishi his mother used to own, on a rocky road in the countryside, and he’s going about 150 kilometers an hour, maybe, something faster than what the dream speedometer can process. 

The lemongrass fields are blurring beside him, and the seats aren’t well-padded, so he can feel every bump, every sputter of the engine. There’s something digging in sharp at the small of his back.

It’s mid-noon about, he guesses, and the sun is hot against his thigh, burning the skin of his left knee through the rips in his jeans.

He turns his head to the side, smiling, before he startles, seeing Suna in the seat next to him. 

The other’s not looking at him, though, face craned away, torso twisting to look at something behind them.

“Hell are ya doin’ in my car?” Atsumu asks. 

Suna says something, lips parting, but Atsumu can’t hear him, the wind ripping the words from his mouth. His dark hair is in disarray, scattered across his cheeks.

Groaning, Atsumu rolls up the windows, and the rushing of the wind cuts off, and with the absence comes the realization that the radio’s actually playing music, mostly static and white noise, but still, something that sounds suspiciously like their newest title song.

“Say again?”

“You might want to turn back,” Suna says, still not looking at him, gaze focused away. His fingers are white knuckled against the worn leather seats, and seeing them, Atsumu presses his foot down harder on the accelerator.

“Why would I do that?” Here Suna is, trespassing in _his_ dream, and now he’s trying to tell him what to do? Like hell.

“I think you hit a bird or something.” Suna answers, grave. “Couple of minutes ago.”

Atsumu faces him again, incredulous, and yells, “What? Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

“You didn’t ask.”

Atsumu swears. “Fuck that.”

He rolls down the windows again to drown out whatever the other may want to say in the future. Suna turns into a bird and flies out the window.

________________________________ 

When Suna walks back into their shared room at two in the morning, it’s to find Atsumu on his bed, clipping his toenails.

“What the hell,” he says.

“’Sup, Rin, where’ve you been? Kita-san’s been looking for you. He was, like, super fucking stressed. You’re lucky Aran convinced him not to call the manager or you’d be dead meat,” Atsumu says, like he’s not been waiting all night for Suna to come in and find him like this.

“What are you doing on my bed,” Suna asks, eyes stuck on the band-aids wrapped around Atsumu’s big toe and side of his ankle, where he’s placed them, trying to ease the chafe from the leather boots they’re supposed to wear to perform. 

“Cutting my nails,” Atsumu rolls his eyes. “Duh.”

Suna glares at him. _I hate you_ , his eyes seem to say, and well whatever, nothing Atsumu didn’t know. “Well, get off,” he says instead and starts towards the other. He doesn’t ask why the other is on his bed because the answer’s obvious. To piss him off.

“Ahh – ahh,” Atsumu holds an arm up in front of him as if to ward Suna off. “I’m not done, and if ya come any closer they’ll all scatter. You don’t want that do you?”

Suna stops in his steps and lip curling, swerves to the other end of the room to pick up their rubbish bin, slamming it in front of the other.

“I swear if you leave anything behind, I’ll cut off all your hair in your sleep,” he says, his voice even, and Atsumu’s disappointed when the other doesn’t rise to the bait, doesn’t shout and scream the way Osamu would’ve. (Osamu, who _quit_ , that fucker. (It's whatever. They're over it.))

"You look stupid like that," Suna says, flicking him between the eyebrows, before bypassing his own bed to collapse onto Atsumu's, limbs spread out and loose.

A pause, and then Atsumu registers the other's previous words. “You can’t do that, the company’ll can you.” Atsumu’s voice comes out too uncertain for his liking, and he frowns when he sees Suna smile.

“Try me,” the other replies, and he makes a snipping motion with his fingers.

It’s quiet for a while then, except for the steady sound of the nail clippers and the whirring of the fan. Atsumu finishes his right foot and starts on the left. 

“What were you doin’ out so late anyway?” he asks when the silence drags on. The other’s neck and shoulders are tense, and he imagines pressing his index and middle finger to the younger’s spine, working the muscles there until the other relaxes and the tension unravels.

“Just needed some air.” Suna winces when Atsumu starts to sweep the clippings into the trash can, the sound dry against the plastic covering.

“Kita-san’s gonna kick your ass.”

“Like you care.” And that, that sounds petulant.

“What’s that s’posed to mean?” Atsumu finds himself asking.

“Nothing.” Suna turns his head, so he’s facing the wall instead of looking at the blonde. “Anyway, he was waiting on the couch. Already yelled at me when I got back. You’re late.”

“Did he really yell?” Atsumu asks, eager despite himself.

“No,” Suna admits. “He doesn’t yell, you know that.” Then, “Dumbass.” He tacks on as an afterthought.

“Well, you shouldn’t go out by yourself so late.” Atsumu says past his dry throat. “You made Kita-san and Aran real worried.”

“So you’ve said,” Suna reminds him. 

Atsumu picks at a loose string at the edge of his shorts.

“Come with me next time, then,” Suna offers suddenly, and Atsumu looks up, blinks at the back of his head owlishly.

“Me?” he asks, like an idiot.

Another sigh, and Suna doesn’t answer. 

Atsumu heaves out a large breath, and then he flops down on Suna’s bed properly, buries his face in the pillow. It smells like boy sweat and the shampoo they all share, something sweet and light like spring.

“Well, I guess,” he says. “If I’m not busy, I could head out with ya.”

Suna flips around, so he’s facing him. The scrunch of his nose is embarrassed and a little surprised, like he’d been expecting a fight.

“Okay, well.” He stops. “Okay.”

________________________________ 

Atsumu learns that this isn’t Suna’s first group. 

Maybe he should’ve known sooner, but even though he loves being on stage, loves listening to the audience chant his name, loves it when the audience _jeers_ because they’re feeling threatened, because it makes him feel alive, he doesn’t actually care what the Internet has to say about him or his group.

Their opinions have never mattered to him.

So. He’s never seen any posts and because the company never mentioned it, he’d never known.

All of a sudden, he remembers the suitcase under the bed, a life time ago.

“We weren’t really a boy group,” Suna offers. “Just a bunch of guys that danced. We did covers, got a lot of views on one of them, that’s it.” He shrugs. “And eventually, we found someone that wanted to sign us on.”

His lips twist. “Didn’t work out, obviously.”

“So, we’re the first _real_ team, you’ve had, right?” Atsumu insists. Suna throws him a side glance before taking a sip from his bottle of jasmine green tea, his mask tugged down to chin.

“I guess,” he replies, and Atsumu swears he can see a faint smile tugging on the other’s lips.

He kind of wants to ask if he can get a link to the video, wonders what past-Suna was like, but it looks like Suna doesn’t want to talk anymore, so for once in his life, he decides not to press.

It’s cold out, and really late, and Atsumu hunches a little more into his hoodie, pulls the drawstrings tighter.

He leans back on his hands, nails digging into soil, and looks at the sky. There’s not much there, though, the light pollution too heavy to see anything past the atmosphere, and the branches of the tree they’re seated under hide everything else from view.

This used to bother him, when he first arrived, unable to see the stars, but like with everything else, he’s gotten used to it, come to accept it.

“We can head back if you want,” Suna says, soft. He’s capping his bottle and pulling his mask back up to cover the lower half of his face.

“Practice early tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

They stand up, and Atsumu holds Suna’s drink for him as the other pats the dirt off his jeans. His fingers close over where the younger’s had been, the plastic warm from the other’s grip.

Later, when they’re climbing the stairs to their dorm, Atsumu trips over his shoelaces and nearly faceplants into the ground. Suna laughs, because he’s a jerk like that, but his hold on Atsumu’s elbow – that, too, is warm.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter at [@atsusuna](https://www.twitter.com/atsusuna)


End file.
